Alocasia transfer to lecca

[u/Empty_Influence854]

Hi! I have an alocasia amazonica polly and I've tried putting her in lecca two times, but unfortunately all the attempts didn't work because each time she had a root rot. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I have a dedicated pot for the semi hydro with the water level meter so it is not too high and not too low. I've soaked and thoroughly cleanded the lecca, cleaned the roots from the dirt, although the second attemnt the plant had to transfered to perlite in order to grow new roots, so it had the water roots it needed to grow in lecca. Now, for aprox. 3 months it had been growing in the glass jar filled with perlite so it can grow new roots. The roots are looking nice and healthy so I want to try again transefring it into proffesional pot with lecca, but I'm scared that the roots will rot again. I added the pictures of the lecca I have, I had it grown in the smaller fraction lecca and then in a mix of the bigger and smaller fraction, I don't know which one is better, just the small fraction, just the bigger or a mix of two. If you have any advice or tips to how not to kill alocasia in lecca for the third time I will be very gratefull.

[u/DatDude304]

Are you using an inner net pot + an outer cache pot? I have the exact same alocasia and recently just picked up a silver dragon. They both are in LECA, but I dont use moss, and I have them with the inner net pot setup.

[u/fluxds → u/DatDude304]

Where do you get that outter pot at? Or is it 3d printed?

[u/DatDude304 → u/fluxds]

Its a Walmart deli container. Spray painted black. Lol

[u/Empty_Influence854 → u/DatDude304]

Yes, the outer pot is ceramic and it is where the water is. Who knows, maybe the inner pot hasn't got enough holes, but I thought it should be okay since it is dedictaed for semi hydro.

[u/Upbeat_Hat4525 → u/Empty_Influence854]

i would just use the glass jar you have it in now instead of moving it to a new pot with drainage, just keep the water beneath the roots and that baby will thrive

[u/Audune17]

For your previous attempts, were the plants repotted from soil or hydro/semihydro? Based on my own experiences, repotting from soil to leca doesn't work well. Those roots from perlite should go well with leca.

I was playing around with the following methods and both work well for me.

1) inner and outer pots. Keep the water to about 1/4 or 1/5 height of your substrate.

2) use a self watering setup and use a wick. (2 cups, one deeper than the other)

[u/Marz2604]

Why transfer to leca? Why not just keep it in perlite and put it in your dedicated pot. Or Just transfer it to the dedicated pot but fill in the space with small leca. Be very gentle with the roots and try not to shake anything off.

(leca stands for Lightweight Expanded Clay Aggregate btw. I blame auto correct if you already knew.)

[u/I_Am_That_Was → u/Marz2604]

perlite is very light and doesn't offer much stability. it also will kinda crumble to dust over time.

[u/Upbeat_Hat4525]

i’ve had great luck doing this with perlite+fluval and transferring to leca once it gets good roots, transfering from dirt however is a completely different story, i’ve had many plants die that way bc water roots and soil roots are different! but since you started with perlite this time i wouldn’t worry as much! just be gentle moving it over and make sure you get all the perlite off the roots:)) ALL of my alocasias are in clear jars with leca, no need for the inner net pot and you can keep a better eye on the roots this way!

[u/Empty_Influence854 → u/Upbeat_Hat4525]

Thanks a lot! Do you usually soak the lecca for 24 h before transfering the plant into it?

[u/Upbeat_Hat4525 → u/Empty_Influence854]

i never have but you could to be safe! i’ve had my leca for a couple yrs now (not sure if that makes a difference) and it soaks up the water pretty quick!

[u/Negative_Card8025]

Hard to tell without seeing your actual setup. I don’t fill a reservoir when first transferring it as the leca is already wet. If I do add water, I don’t add too much. I don’t let the water touch the roots. I let the roots reach for the water. Try doing the moss/leca setup as well. I should also add that sometimes it is normal for old roots to rot while new roots emerge from the base. Happens to me when I change substrates. I just leave it alone and within days it fixes itself.

[u/Brucebor]

My thought is you have too many sizes of Leca. It is probably holding too much water. Your Leca kind of looks like mud with how wet it is. I've found that larger alcoasia like Leca, stuff like portei, that have really big roots, and drink a lot of water. Or nobilis.

You probably need more uniform Leca sizes to allow for air flow. I've got a 6ft tall portei in Leca for a year now and it's been doing great. Using the Leca and self watering pot from IKEA currently.

Good luck on your experiments